iTunes Store is still only 256 Kbit AAC, so you need to rip directly from CD or similar to convert to ALAC / Apple Lossless. Unless the .m4a container really is ALAC encoded.
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Next-Gen iPhone & iPhone Nano Speculation
- Thread starter Arun
- Start date
iTunes Store is still only 256 Kbit AAC, so you need to rip directly from CD or similar to convert to ALAC / Apple Lossless. Unless the .m4a container really is ALAC encoded.
There's probably no DDR3 support then..
Still, a non-PoP part is cheaper than PoP since the assembly costs are lower. Maybe the packaging costs too.
Well I know today is Samsung's day, with the S4 unveiling and all.
But it seems like if the only thing worth discussing about Apple is this revision of an old SOC for a minor product, they have a lot of work to do.
Today, some analyst downgraded the price target of the stock and said that high-end phones now must have 4.5-inch displays or greater, implying that iPhone 5 and the expected 5S may have difficulty selling against the S4 and other phones with bigger displays. He said Apple wouldn't be able to produce a phone that met this criterium until at least a year from now.
Certainly it would take a long time to turn around their supply-chain for bigger displays (and bigger batteries), in the kind of volumes they'd want. But a bigger obstacle would be to migrate their app. ecosystem to yet another resolution.
But it seems like if the only thing worth discussing about Apple is this revision of an old SOC for a minor product, they have a lot of work to do.
Today, some analyst downgraded the price target of the stock and said that high-end phones now must have 4.5-inch displays or greater, implying that iPhone 5 and the expected 5S may have difficulty selling against the S4 and other phones with bigger displays. He said Apple wouldn't be able to produce a phone that met this criterium until at least a year from now.
Certainly it would take a long time to turn around their supply-chain for bigger displays (and bigger batteries), in the kind of volumes they'd want. But a bigger obstacle would be to migrate their app. ecosystem to yet another resolution.
ltcommander.data
Regular
Were there major new Samsung developments to discuss when the iPhone 5 was released? I think it's just a matter of them being at different points of their design cycle.
Personally, I think 4.5" is the optimal size in a smartphone for me. Coincidentally, 1280x720 at 4.5" is 326 dpi.
In any case, it may be one selling point, but I'm not sure of the conclusion that a high-end phone "must" have a >= 4.5" display. I think the general issue is that Apple is trying to make one phone to target as many people as possible, whereas Samsung and other manufacturers both individually and collectively can design multiple high-end devices addressing many different preferences that in aggregate exceed the potential iPhone market. There is certainly a market for a high-end big-screen iPhone, but that should be alongside a high-end 4" iPhone rather than replacing it, because it's not likely a straight superset.
Will you say the same for Samsung when Apple launches its next generation hw? I dont' think it takes a wizzard to acknowledge that each of the big players have their own roadmaps with quite different timeframes.
Why don't analysts also suggest that Apple should use cheaper device materials and lower the prices for their high end smartphones to come even closer to Samsung's strategy?
While none of us usually knows what Apple is really cooking, I'd be personally VERY surprised if they'll change their mindset considering i-Phone device sizes and display resolution any time soon. Despite the fact that I wouldn't say no to a bigger screen either.
ltcommander.data
Regular
http://www.chipworks.com/blog/techn...side-the-latest-apple-a5-from-a-new-apple-tv/
The latest update in the article reports it's still Samsung 32nm, obviously with major design changes. With what are likely significant reductions, as Exophase previously pointed out, at some point the A5 naming becomes tenuous.
The iphone has never had "difficulty" selling against larger phones in the past, so why would it have difficulty selling against larger phones in the future? I think this analyst is overanalyzing here.
Are you thinking of that wristwatch alike thing?
Not thinking any particular product, just further smaller/cheaper versions of their mainstream stuff. I don't think a watch will be that mainstream but I could be wrong.
The A5 is used in a currently sold model of every iOS line (iPhone 4S, iPad 2, iPad mini, iPod touch, Apple TV). Any process improvement that helps yields or margins is a win, even without a new product line.
As for a larger-screened iPhone, if Apple were to release one I think Marco Arment's guess is the most plausibly conservative.
As for a larger-screened iPhone, if Apple were to release one I think Marco Arment's guess is the most plausibly conservative.
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Regardless of what Apple is calling this I don't think this is functionally equivalent to all the other parts currently called A5. It's very unlikely that they were able to reduce the size of the chip to just over half of what it was through optimization alone, even at the expense of performance or power consumption. So it probably has less functional blocks. Less CPU power, GPU power, and memory bandwidth are the currently speculated candidates.
It's possible that they'll silently sneak a weaker chip into the iPad Mini but that would be a pretty bad move on their part.. would be best if it makes it into a clearly new product that probably also reduces costs elsewhere.
ltcommander.data
Regular
It seems like Apple is now designing 3 distinct SoC classes: tablet, smartphone, and CE. This new dedicated CE A5 could point to an Apple TV set although it's capabilities might mean Apple is envisioning a limited app ecosystem focused around media, maybe for media companies only rather than just anyone, if they plan on opening it up at all initially.
I think it's a bit early to say that, we'll need to see whether or not this chip is used in other sorts of devices and what its capabilities are. If it looks like they cut a lot of die area that doesn't belong to CPU, GPU, or memory controller (image processor, peripheral interfaces like camera) then that'll support this new SoC design class. Otherwise I'm open to the third class being "cheaper stuff" (which is what the other A5s are currently relegated to)
It's tempting to say this SoC class has already been established since earlier Apple TVs had disabled CPU cores but that's just die harvesting as a big cost cutting measure, not part customization.
They say it's a dual core GPU but I don't know how this conclusion was reached (other than some apparent symmetry in the block). In the original A5 the dual core GPU part is substantially larger than the dual core CPU part, now the part they're calling GPU is smaller than the part they're calling single core CPU. And it's not like there's something smaller than SGX543 Apple could be using in an IMG dual core, although there are probably configuration options that could change.
The two structures to the bottom right and left of the part labeled GPU look pretty much identical to the four structures of the GPU part in the older die. In fact, the whole cluster (block labeled GPU, block directly below it and to the left and right) look very much like one half of the GPU section on the original die, only taking up the entire center block instead of half of it. Could this be a single SGX554 core? Or maybe it's still an SGX543 but with more SRAM for whatever reasons (larger L1 cache, tile memory, etc)
CPU looks auto-routed now vs hand laid out in the past. Maybe optimized for area. Based on relative sizes of what looks like tags, L1 cache, and TLB cells it could be possible that this only has 256KB of L2 cache instead of 512KB.
The two structures to the bottom right and left of the part labeled GPU look pretty much identical to the four structures of the GPU part in the older die. In fact, the whole cluster (block labeled GPU, block directly below it and to the left and right) look very much like one half of the GPU section on the original die, only taking up the entire center block instead of half of it. Could this be a single SGX554 core? Or maybe it's still an SGX543 but with more SRAM for whatever reasons (larger L1 cache, tile memory, etc)
CPU looks auto-routed now vs hand laid out in the past. Maybe optimized for area. Based on relative sizes of what looks like tags, L1 cache, and TLB cells it could be possible that this only has 256KB of L2 cache instead of 512KB.
The only other unnecessary IP that I can think of that has not been mentioned yet is video encode. Wouldn't be required for Apple TV and likely redundant for any device that doesn't have a camera. I don't recall the video encode and decode blocks ever bing identified on any apple socs, or were they just lumped into the GPU area.
At least the original A5 uses IMG's VXE and VXD IP for video encode and decode respectively. It's confirmed here: http://bbimagineers.blogspot.com/2011/07/apple-q3.html I don't think they're part of what's commonly identified as the GPU block.
On second glance, I don't think that this is differently configured SGX543 or an SGX554.. I think the center part of the dual core cluster on the original die just happens to be separate from each individual core/shared by both. It could contain a shared L2 cache and some front end command parsing and core scheduling logic. The repeated rectangular blocks could be TMUs (each SGX543 core has two) and the other block could contain the USSE2 engines.
I don't know what could be missing from the non-CPU or GPU portions but it has to be something, there are significantly fewer blocks than there were on the old one (looks like 9 vs 14). I'd be really surprised if this contains more than a 32-bit memory controller with only one CPU and GPU core.
On second glance, I don't think that this is differently configured SGX543 or an SGX554.. I think the center part of the dual core cluster on the original die just happens to be separate from each individual core/shared by both. It could contain a shared L2 cache and some front end command parsing and core scheduling logic. The repeated rectangular blocks could be TMUs (each SGX543 core has two) and the other block could contain the USSE2 engines.
I don't know what could be missing from the non-CPU or GPU portions but it has to be something, there are significantly fewer blocks than there were on the old one (looks like 9 vs 14). I'd be really surprised if this contains more than a 32-bit memory controller with only one CPU and GPU core.
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anexanhume
Veteran
Word is that the 20nm A7 tapes out this month: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130313PD215.html
And Kurt Wolf thinks Apple will use TSMC and Samsung this year:
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/14...r-20-nm-a7-chip-with-early-2014-availability/
And Kurt Wolf thinks Apple will use TSMC and Samsung this year:
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/14...r-20-nm-a7-chip-with-early-2014-availability/